Lonely Hearts

Ever since “The Godfather: Part 2” artistically ambitious crime dramas have superimposed gloomy philosophical reveries over blood and guts. That certainly is the dynamic of “The Sopranos,” one of the few that have managed to generate a tragicomic dialogue out of this double vision. Ordinarily, however, the metaphysics are smothered under the splatter.

“Lonely Hearts,” a beautifully photographed remake of Leonard Kastle’s 1970 cult B-movie “The Honeymoon Killers” — which was based on the actual crimes of the couple known as the Lonely Hearts Killers — succeeds better than many in balancing the philosophical with the visceral, although its villains’ dirty deeds still trump its deeper strain of melancholy. Let’s face it: It’s more exciting to watch Jared Leto, as Ray Fernandez, a lean, cocky con man and self-styled stud, put the moves on the credulous, love-starved women he meets through lonely-hearts clubs than to contemplate the despair of Elmer Robinson (John Travolta), the detective investigating Ray’s crimes.

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Scott Caan, James Gandolfini and John Travolta in the film "Lonely Hearts," directed by Todd Robinson.
Credit
Gene Page/Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions

As he often does when he steps out of the Hollywood mainstream, Mr. Travolta surprises with the depth of his acting. Elmer is a Long Island detective whose face is scrunched into a scowl of glum perplexity through most of the movie. Already eroded by years of grim police work, his faith in law and order — and in humanity — has crumbled after the unexplained suicide of his wife, who early in the film is found after shooting herself; it happens on their wedding anniversary, no less.

Elmer is estranged from his 15-year-old son, Eddie (Dan Byrd), and treats his girlfriend, Rene (Laura Dern), who works in his precinct, with despicable callousness. That you still feel for him is a triumph of Mr. Travolta’s wonderfully interior performance.

Elmer is balanced by James Gandolfini’s portrayal of his partner, Charles Hildebrandt, who sporadically narrates the movie and has the bulk of its wisecracking, hard-boiled dialogue. This is Tony Soprano as played by a less overbearing Broderick Crawford, on the right side of the law for once, but still formidable.

Despite all the care put into these characters, the killers carry the day as surely as the losers and lowlifes carried it in last year’s neo-noir “Hollywoodland,” which was set in roughly the same period. (Most of “Lonely Hearts” takes place in 1949.) Far more unsettling than the discovery of Elmer’s dead wife is a later scene in which Ray’s partner in crime, Martha Beck (Salma Hayek), catches him having sex with another woman. Martha shoots her from behind, then straddles Ray and keeps the action going while her victim tumbles to the floor in a pool of blood.

“Lonely Hearts” is the directorial debut of Todd Robinson, grandson of the real-life Elmer, to whom the movie is dedicated. Shot in desaturated shades by Peter Levy, it is at least the third movie (after “The Honeymoon Killers” and the well-regarded 1996 Mexican film “Deep Crimson”) based on the Lonely Hearts Killers, who were executed at Sing Sing in 1951 after committing a string of murders.

It is worth noting the differences between the villains in “Lonely Hearts” and the real criminals, who were portrayed much more accurately by Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco in the harsh, black-and-white “Honeymoon Killers.” The real Martha Beck, an ex-nurse who weighed more than 200 pounds — her execution had to be delayed because her body was too large to fit into the electric chair — was nothing like Ms. Hayek’s demented femme fatale. Ms. Hayek’s predatory beauty changes everything. Mr. Leto’s Ray Fernandez is closer to Patrick Swayze in “Dirty Dancing” or Christopher Walken in “Roseland” than to a lowlife Latino con man; his accent is barely discernible.

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From left, John Travolta, James Gandolfini and Scott Caan.Credit
Gene Page/Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions

But as fictional characters in a movie that is fetishistic in its attention to period detail, Mr. Leto and Ms. Hayek work well together as an unsavory couple two rungs down the social ladder from Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity.” Ms. Hayek’s Martha, a victim of childhood incest who begins as one of Ray’s marks and becomes his dominating, fiercely possessive lover, is a scary sociopath whose twisted sense of self-esteem derives from the power she exerts over him. That he’s willing to kill for her makes her feel like queen of the world.

Mr. Leto, strutting around in a toupee, is the spitting image of a vain, small-time gigolo high on his own oily charms. Once Martha gets her hooks into him, he metamorphoses from tarnished smoothie to trapped animal. The film allows Ray no dignity. At his execution the camera stares unblinkingly as he is dragged, shouting and kicking, to the electric chair.

We hear the screams beneath his mask as smoke pours from his body. It may not be intentional, but “Lonely Hearts” appears to be ardently in favor of capital punishment.

A film review in Weekend on Friday about “Lonely Hearts” referred incorrectly to the suicide of the wife of the central character, the detective Elmer Robinson. She shoots herself; she does not slash her wrists.